


God of dust

by Purrrkwood



Series: Playing Gods [2]
Category: Road to El Dorado (2000)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Post Film, What Was I Thinking?, why do I write angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-24
Updated: 2014-06-24
Packaged: 2018-02-05 23:50:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1836679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Purrrkwood/pseuds/Purrrkwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How much does it take to build a life? <i>Maybe it’s a meaningless idea</i>, he thought to himself. On the other hand, he knew exactly how long it takes to destroy it: just a few seconds and the right words spoken at the right time, with the right tone and the right expression.</p>
            </blockquote>





	God of dust

**Author's Note:**

> Uhm, I feel bad. Why does angst always end up in my works?  
> English is not my first language, but I'm trying to learn to write properly. Yay!
> 
> This could be the sequel to my other story, ["The things you do to me"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1709519), but it isn't really. Reading both would just give you a better idea of my characterization!

All around him was the sea: the lazy blue waves, turning purple in the sunset light and gently ending their run on the shore and against the pier. Around him was the wind, lulling the leaves on the trees and the hair of the girls walking in the warm salty air. Around him was the music, slowly accompanying the seagulls’ fly in the last dance of the day. 

Cuba was exactly like he had imagined it: noisy, colorful, suffocating. Living. In the cold winter nights, when they had to sleep together to fight the bites of cold, Miguel had spoken about Cuba and how much he wanted to visit it, gesticulating the way only he did, exaltation exuding from every pore. During those nights, Tullio gladly clung to him, because those smiles, sometimes a bit exaggerated, were everything he needed to forget his problems and sleep, and his partner’s fire kept the cold away better than any luxurious bed in the rich people’s houses. 

Actually, to be honest, after all they had been trough everywhere would have been good: it was already a miracle they had found the boat still intact on the beach, after their incredible escape from Eldorado. Just the sight of real people had almost made Tullio cry with joy.

And yet there was something terribly ironic in all of this, and Tullio kept repeating the word “ironic” in his mind because its only synonym would have been “cruel”. Ironic, because a part of him really wanted to laugh.

How much does it take to build a life? _Maybe it’s a meaningless idea_ , he thought to himself. On the other hand, he knew exactly how long it takes to destroy it: just a few seconds and the right words spoken at the right time, with the right tone and the right expression.

Tullio laughed, but it was a bitter and panicked laughter.

“What do you mean?” in that moment, he realized that everything he had felt and heard before had vanished: the waves, the wind, the music; they were far now, as if the village had suddenly moved somewhere else.

The waves chased each other just under his eyes. Miguel was looking at them leaned on the railing, clinging to himself, the eyes fixed on the sun that slowly dived into the ocean: he avoided his gaze and Tullio didn’t like it, because Miguel didn’t hide anything. Miguel spoke maybe too much, but never too little and above all, he had never withdrawn that way. And yet, Tullio feared the obvious answer to his question.

“What do you think it means?” his voice was tired, and that was terribly wrong as well. Miguel turned slightly and their eyes met for a brief moment. Tullio bit his lips, trying to even his breath.

Tullio didn’t believe in destiny. It wasn’t just a matter of games, cheating and loaded dice, but the firm conviction that no one, in the real world or in a celestial one, could dictate his existence. After losing everything he had realized that being alive was all that he could still hold on to. Besides, honestly, he believed that even God himself would have shaken his head and surrendered at the idea of bringing order to that mess that was his life.

The sun had set, the waves were crashing under them, the music still animated the night in the distance, but for what Tullio cared everything could have blew up and he wouldn’t notice.

Maybe it was one of those situations that can be resolved with calm and diplomacy. Surely he felt his breath shortening and accelerating, making his head light. 

“You’re not serious, are you?” he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and it worked a little. A little, that is the time to close his eyes and hope that, once open, they would show him the true reality, the one in which, if Miguel was tired, it was just because of the long day spent in merrymaking and nothing else, surely not because of…

No; _Don’t think_. That was the secret: not thinking. Thoughts make things become real, they rip them off the imagination sphere where they’re still ethereal ideas and turn them in something real, and real thing turn into problems and… it was really better not to think. As long as Miguel kept looking away he could pretend his expression was serene.

But Miguel turned around and he wasn’t serene at all. He was sad. Perhaps even angry. Miguel was angry because he didn’t want to think.

“Do you think this is a joke?”

_ Yes, it is,  _ he wanted to answer, _I want this to be a joke, I want you to smile like you always do, I want to hear you making fun of me, telling me this is all a tease, because I’m too serious and I need to laugh more. I want you not to tell me what you want to tell me, because I know what it is and I don’t want to hear it; because I’ve been sending away that thought for days hoping that it would disappear and it’s not fair it hasn’t. Because I’m a selfish man who can’t accept that he cannot have everything he wants; because what I want I take by force, but I just couldn’t do so with you. Because you’re the one who stays with me whatever happens and it goes against all logic, the fact that you want to…_

“Stay here,” Miguel was looking at him like he was trying to apologize “Try to understand, I can’t… I can’t, I just can’t. Do you think I’m an idiot? I can’t… look at me!”

Miguel was screaming. It wasn’t good. At all.

“Look at me.” He said again, and Tullio hadn’t even seen him approaching. He met his gaze, just a few centimeters away and wondered what was the day when everything had changed, where was the line separating the moment when everything was still good from the one when everything had started to fall to pieces, slowly and quietly, like rock eroded by water finally crumbling and becoming dust. He was holding that dust in his hands now, trying to remember the day when it was still solid rock, but he couldn’t remember. It was like everything had started to end the moment it had begun.

But his problem was that he too often forgot he couldn’t have everything in his life. In his frenzy of filling his bag with gold he forgot about the tiny hole at the bottom, from which inevitably, for every new treasure that entered, one got out. Less than a mile away, under the light of colorful lanterns, Chel was probably dancing with some villager, her dark eyes wide with the excitement that came from any small discovery in that unfamiliar world. Chel, who had charmed him, Chel who, in the end, was just like him, eager and never satisfied with riches. Chel, who seemed to love him, and probably did. Chel, who had entered the bag and threw out the one that already occupied it.

Miguel probably hated her, even if he didn’t show it. He probably wanted to insult them both, but something prevented him from doing so.

Miguel wanted clear words he couldn’t provide. There was no way to explain _that,_ no words that wouldn’t worsen the situation, that didn’t sound like _“Hey, I found another person, but please, stay, I hate to throw things away.”_ And Tullio hated himself, because a part of him really thought that; He wanted to have his cake and eat it and wanted it to be perfectly normal and possible. That part of him yelled and stamped, because it was unfair to have to choose, even though everyone wanted him to. Miguel wanted him to choose, Chel himself surely wanted too, because she hadn’t left her home and her land just to be content with a little. It wasn’t fair toward her: he had taken her away, he couldn’t abandon her now.

Tullio closed his eyes. The sea crashed against the rocks, the seagulls sang and the music animated a party that neither of them would attend.

When he reopened them, he was alone.

__

 


End file.
